"You must see my point, at least. Darlena, these colonists initiated the bloodiest conflict in human history. We have to make sure that doesn't happen again."
"Yes, I see your point. But that was an act of creative destruction. They're not monsters. Look at what we've been able to accomplish in the wake of their actions, rising from the ashes of the old empire."
"Hmm. I still don't like it. Feels like rationalizing the deaths of more than a billion people. It takes fire to make ash, remember. Who are we to think we can predict what may have been?"
"Many scholars of the Record support my stance. The rebellion was the inevitable conclusion to decades of abuse from a distant empire, and it's not controversial to say so."
"Yes, Darlena, as I seem to have said many times before, you may be right. Well, how long are we to wait then?"
"You agree? Thank you, Simon. It won't be long—a few weeks at most."
"Weeks? The Director won't be happy about the delay."
"I'll handle the Director. Trust me, if we let things play out it will make our work much simpler."
***
"Myra, shut it off!" Bee commanded.
Littlefoot's sirens stopped immediately, but the lid on the cryo pod continued to rise. Wisps of white gas spilled through the gap. Regretting her choice to ignore Montez's warning, Bee immediately shoved down on the lid to close it again.
Instead, she felt something push back. Startled, she recoiled and knocked against the wall behind her as she fumbled for her pistol. Trapped between the pod and the wall, Bee watched as the cryo pod's lid suddenly flew open. From the fog inside emerged the wild-eyed incarnation of her childhood nightmares, red light blazing from his optical implant—Dreadstar.
Before she could process the shock of seeing the tattooed corpse of a pirate rising from the dead, he'd already lunged straight for her gun. His red eye flashed brightly enough for her visor to auto-polarize, and even then it half-blinded her. They both fell to the ground, Bee wrestling for control of the pistol while she tried to blink away dazzling blobs of light. She held tight to the weapon and tried not to shoot herself.
"Myra—"
As her vision cleared, the gleaming black barrel of the second pistol appeared in front of her visor. Dreadstar must have found it on the ground where she'd tossed it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She thought whoever was in the pod would be slow, weakened, like waking up from a deep sleep.
"Let go of the gun and take off your helmet," the pirate ordered. "Now."
Finding herself suddenly on the other end of the gun, Bee grudgingly complied by relaxing her grip.
"The helmet too. And the rest of it," he said, waving the pistols impatiently as he stepped over her, keeping one trained on her and the other pointed ahead. "Stay on the ground!"
Dreadstar, alive again.
Bee detached her helmet, feeling dizzy as she removed it. It couldn't be the same man—she'd seen his body with her own eyes back in Overlook City. The thing was practically a national monument. It made no sense. But the tattoos of endless numbers, the pale skin, the glowing red eye... he was unmistakable. She'd cut one pirate down by killing Starhawk, and another rose to replace him.
From the main cabin, Dreadstar said to the others, "You two, helmets off. Armor off. Quickly, or I start putting holes in you."
The others.
Dreadstar gestured again with one gun, this time at Montez. "You must be Myra? Petite, very nice. I said, helmets off. And why is this one pointing at me? Are you slow, friend? You can't shoot with that, you know." Amused, Dreadstar tapped the barrel of a pistol against Crane's visor. "Your armor looks my size. I'll take it."
He thought Montez was Myra. He must have heard Bee call out to Myra while they were fighting over the gun, and assumed that Myra was one of the other two people on board.
With three against one, they might stand a chance. She just needed a few seconds. Quietly slipping her helmet back on, Bee inched toward the outer airlock door as Dreadstar's curiosity over Crane got the best of him. He still had one pistol pointed her direction, but wasn't watching closely enough to notice her move. With the inner door still open, she had a chance to even the score again. Bee put her hands on the wheel.
"Hey! Armor off!" The pirate saw her at the airlock and primed both guns to fire.
"Myra, unlock Crane's suit!" Bee shouted as she ducked behind the cryo pod and frantically spun the wheel. Laser fire singed the air around her arms, scorching black marks on the airlock and warping the coating on her nullsuit with heat bubbles. Bee jerked her hands back, thinking she'd been shot, but they were only glancing blows. The black-purple nullsteel coating had completely melted in places.
"Wrong move, little Core-dweller!" Dreadstar yelled as he advanced, continuing to fire at the wheel of the airlock. "Now you die!"
Inside the cabin, Crane staggered as control returned to his armored nullsuit. He tackled Dreadstar from behind, pinning the pirate's arms to his sides and thrashing him around. One pistol popped loose, clattering to the floor.
Bee seized on the opportunity, grabbing the glowing-hot wheel with her gauntlets. She gave it one final wrench around as her armor smoked and sizzled where it touched metal. The outer airlock door burst open at last, depressurizing the ship and sweeping all four occupants off their feet.
Bee tried to grab onto something, but smashed her shoulder on the door and flew off into space, blindly pulsing her palm nodes in the direction of the ship. Her right glove sputtered tendrils of green light—horrified, she realized she must have burned the node badly enough to damage it.
To her relief, the beam of energy from her left palm node caught hold of Littlefoot and began to pull her back in. Bee grasped a handle outside the airlock when it came within reach, heart pounding at the thought that she'd almost been drifting free in open space.
Montez, Crane, and Dreadstar, entangled together, knocked into the cryo pod hard enough to push it free, sending it spinning end over end. Firing wildly with his remaining pistol, Dreadstar scored a hit on Crane's right leg. At such close range, the beam seared through every layer of armor coating in an instant. Screaming, Crane clamped both hands over the hole in his upper thigh, sealing the breach as best he could. Montez held onto her partner as they tumbled out the airlock, wrapping her arms and legs around his torso.
Dreadstar slipped free, somehow rolled into a graceful somersault ahead of the others, and pushed off the edge of the airlock with his feet. He sailed toward the nearby cryo pod with just seconds to live.
Bee watched in disbelief as the nearly nude pirate dove—arms outstretched, eyes closed, exhaling his breath in a stream of white mist—straight into the open cryo pod. The lid slammed shut behind him.
Stunned, Bee gaped from her perch as the pod spun violently from the force of the impact, arcing toward the surface of the asteroid below. "Is he alive in there?"
"Yes," Myra's copy replied. "Occupant shows signs of minor space exposure and rapid decompression, but the pod is stabilizing." A heartbeat later, she added, "Alert. Unknown number of unidentified spacecraft approaching rapidly."
"Shit." Crane and Montez floated within arm's reach. Reluctantly, Bee held out a hand for them, still unsure of their allegiances. She knew for sure, though, that without their help she wouldn't know where to go next. "Come on, let's get out of here."
Montez groped for the outstretched glove, but with only inches left between them she couldn't quite make it. Bee shifted her stance to hook one boot under the handle she'd been hanging on to, leaned out, grabbed Montez's hand, and pulled both scrappers into the open airlock beside her.
"You're welcome," Bee said to both as she followed them inside, quickly swinging the door shut behind her. "You can thank me later, we've got incoming."
Crane staggered inside with Montez's help, each taking their places at the two pilot's chairs while Bee secured the inner airlock.
"How many?" Montez tapped in several commands, smashing a fist against the console in frustration when nothing worked. Furious, she whirled on Bee. "It's locked. You did this, undo it right now."
"Myra, give Montez control," Bee ordered.
"Error," the AI's clone responded in a broken voice. "Counter-intrusion failed. Unable to—"
"Myra?" Bee asked, touching a hand to the side of her helmet. "Are you okay?"
"Hey!" Montez waved her arms in front of Bee's face. "Whoever Myra is, tell her to unlock my ship!"
"Shhh, stop. Something's wrong with her." Bee turned away, concern growing with the lengthening silence from her companion. "Please, Myra, just tell me you're okay."
"Hey, we gotta get out of here!" Montez yelled, shoving Bee by the shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye, Montez saw the laser pistol Dreadstar had dropped when Crane tackled him. Bee was completely ignoring her, so Montez snatched the weapon up and primed it. "Unlock my goddamn ship."
"Uh, Montez—you might wanna reconsider picking a fight right now," Crane said from behind her. He pointed at Littlefoot's main display. Over a dozen warships had surrounded the asteroid they orbited. A shuttle dropped from the belly of the closest of them, but then the display screens went blank. "Here they come. Okay, Montez, I want you to listen to me. You too, crazy, listen up. These people have a code. If we follow it, we might live past the next five minutes; if we don't, we absolutely will die. We've got no option but complete and total surrender. Understand?"
Bee slumped to the floor near the airlock, cradling her head in both hands. Without Myra's help, she had nothing, no defense against what might come next. Even the shadow of the AI felt like having a friend still, so it stung more than just the loss of a valuable tool. At least she'd gotten to see through Mother's revenge to the end, even if it meant her own early death. After what she'd done to Starhawk, the pirates would show her no mercy.
#
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